Telangana issue forces IT firms to eye neighbours

Political disturbance over the demand for a separate Telangana state is forcing information technology companies to shift. The process to shortlist office space in neighbouring states, like Tamil Nadu, is underway.

"Six companies, including top five in IT and operating in Hyderabad, want to shift before the end of January," Chennai-based Shriram Properties Managing Director M Murali said.

Software exports from Andhra Pradesh are projected to touch Rs 35,000 crore in 2009-10, and IT companies like Tata Consultancy Services , Infosys , Wipro , Tech Mahindra and HCL are present in Hyderabad.

"Besides Chennai, we have received enquires for leased properties in Visakhapatnam. All want office space for at least three-five years," Murali added.

"Two IT majors have approached us for 100 apartments on bulk lease, besides IT premises," said Chitty Babu, chairman of Akshaya Homes, a Chennai-based developer.

The IT department of Tamil Nadu confirmed that Chennai had received enquiries from Hyderabad-based IT companies. The Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu (Elcot), the nodal agency for IT in the state, develops special economic zones.

"We have been approached by IT companies, which are currently enquiring about availability of space in the state," an IT department official said. He added that Elcot was planning to organise roadshows -- from Hyderabad to begin with -- to promote IT in Tamil Nadu.

The move is bound to have its impact.

"About 15-20 percent of the 60,000-140,000 professionals employed globally by Tech Mahindra, Patni Computers, Satyam Computer, HCL, Wipro, Infosys and TCS globally are based in Hyderabad," P Phani Sekhar, fund manager (research arm), Angel Broking said.

J A Chowdary, managing director of NVidia Graphics India and president of The Indus Entrepreneurs, Hyderabad chapter, said if the decision on Telangana was prolonged, the IT companies would suffer. "Though we have requested the political parties to ensure law and order, students are going in for violent agitations by not allowing buses to ply and creating problems for people to reach offices."

Vineet Nayyar is Satyam’s chief

HYDERABAD: Mahindra Satyam has announced the appointment of Vineet Nayyar as the company’s chairman. Nayyar was so far heading the company as vice-chairman.

Announcing this after the company’s board meeting, a Mahindra Satyam statement also said that the company had appointed former Sebi chairman M Damodaran and Gautam Kaji as additional directors with immediate effect, expanding its board to eight members.

Meanwhile, the company said it had appointed Deloitte Haskins & Sells as the company’s statutory auditor for fiscal year ended March 31, 2009 as well as fiscal year ended March 31, 2010. Deloitte Haskins & Sells, one of the two audit firms roped in by the postscam Satyam Board to restate accounts, will vet the accounts of Mahindra group company for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 fiscals as statutory auditor.

The company, which was acquired by Tech Mahindra in April, has secured time until June 2010 from the Company Law Board to file financials, including quarterly results.

Mahindra Satyam says added 35 clients since April

Indian IT services firm Mahindra Satyam has added 35 new clients since April 13 and lost just a small handful, said the firm's chief executive officer, who added that the worst was behind the company.

Mahindra Satyam was earlier known as Satyam Computer Services. Satyam was acquired by India's Tech Mahindra in an auction in April after the firm was hit by India's biggest corporate fraud, which came to light in January.

"I do believe that we are now stable from a customer, or a delivery perspective," CEO C.P. Gurnani told Reuters TV on Sunday.

"I am very, very clear that the bottom is behind us and we are back on a path to recovery," he added during the interview on the sidelines of a World Economic Forum event in New Delhi.

He said the company, which lost 25 to 30 percent of its customers between January and Tech Mahindra's agreement to take over the firm on April 13, had since then added 35 new customers and, to his knowledge, lost just three.

The firm had about 380 customers when Tech Mahindra won an auction to take it over, he said.

Gurnani also said the restatement of company results for the past several years would be made on or before June 30, 2010.

Mahindra Satyam logs out of Sector V

KOLKATA: The spate of companies' exiting the state continues. Mahindra Satyam on Friday said it wants to return the 2.77-acre plot given to it by the Bengal government at Salt Lake's Sector V. The land has been lying unused for almost four years.

"Towards the end of last month, we had informed the government that we want to give back the land. We are waiting for a reply," a Mahindra Satyam spokesman told TOI from Hyderabad, adding that the decision had been prompted by the "current business realities faced by IT companies".

State IT minister Debesh Das and IT secretary Siddharth could not be reached for their reactions to the Mahindra Satyam pull-out.

The Sector V land was handed over when Mahindra Satyam was still under the Rajus. The MoU was signed in the presence of Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and Ramalinga Raju at Hyderabad on January 30, 2004. The foundation stone was laid on February 24, 2006.

"The Kolkata pullout was inevitable as the company is going through a phase of consolidating infrastructure. Rather than hold on to something it knows it can't find a use for, it did the best thing by returning it to the Bengal government so that it can be given to someone who needs it," a source familiar with Mahindra Satyam's policies said.

"There were also synergy issues since Tech Mahindra already has a big presence in Kolkata," the source pointed out. "From Bengal's standpoint, however, the Mahindra Satyam pullout was the last thing that the state, already grappling with myriad problems, would have wanted." Tech Mahindra is building its own campus within Jagmohan Dalmiya's IT SEZ in Bantala.

Ever since the Mahindras took control of Satyam, there has been speculation whether the software company's new owners would do anything with the land at Sector V since it was too small to be converted into an SEZ.

In September itself, Mahindra Satyam chief executive officer C P Gurnani had told TOI that an "independent Mahindra Satyam entity in Kolkata, if thought necessary at some point, could always come up within a Tech Mahindra complex there".

Satyam had originally announced that its Salt Lake facility would employ 2000 associates. Although these plans never fructified, Satyam had been continuously urging the government to provide it with more land for an IT SEZ.

Investments in the state's tech space have slowed since March 2007 much before the global downturn made IT companies think twice before expanding. Although moves are still afoot to get Wipro to set up a second cam-pus in Kolkata, Infosys has ruled out the possibility of making any investments here till the situation improves.